


Out of His Head

by oneatatime



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Lorna is very much missed but doesn't appear, Multi, consensual poly, set early in season 2, some porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 10:27:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16972854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneatatime/pseuds/oneatatime
Summary: There's a lot of distress, and Clarice figures out what to do to take the edges off for a night.





	Out of His Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Barbed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbed/gifts).



**Clarice**

“He’s being an idiot,” Clarice said flatly. She shifted back to sit more comfortably against her pillow against the head of the bed. This was a new place. Yeah, yet another. At least they’d found some furniture this time. She didn’t mind sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but an actual bed was better.

“Look, it’s not that I’m disagreeing with you. . .”

John ran his fingers back through his hair. There was the slightest wince on top of the first wince, and Clarice narrowed her eyes. She reached for his wrist, not hard but not gently either, and he let her.

“ _John_ ,” she breathed. His knuckles were bloody again. It was not a lot, not compared to how some of the rest of the group got, whether or not they were upset. But it was John. John, who had as one of his main abilities the capacity to heal just about anything and just about instantly.

How many times had he pounded his fists into a wall to get this kind of damage?

She let go, and looked at him, beautiful and distressed in his boxers and sleeveless white shirt, and she looked at the bed they shared, and she thought about her own frustrations. She thought about how much Marcos was pissing her off, for all that she could see he was badly upset by losing Lorna and their kid, and for all that she could understand that pain at least intellectually.

She thought about how badly she wanted to pull him into line. But she wasn’t the leader, and she didn’t want to be, and she didn’t want responsibility for Marcos.

She knew someone who did, though.

And maybe she had responsibility for _him._

Clarice came to a decision, just as John murmured, “I’m fine.”

She choked on a laugh. “Right,” she said, tucking a wandering tendril of hair back behind her ear. She could hear the abrasiveness in her tone. Sometimes she tried to rein that in, if there was a good reason for not showing her anger. Sometimes she didn’t give a damn. Anger was good. Anger was strong, made you powerful, kept you fighting. Anger didn’t mean there was no love, no gentleness.

(And maybe she was grieving Lorna, too. Lorna was always really good at anger.)

“I have an idea,” she continued. “You two used to, uh, do things together, right? When Lorna was here. The two of you, sometimes the three of you. So go get him. If you want to, I mean. Go get him, take him out of his head for a night. It’d be good for both of you.” 

He turned his head slowly to look at her, blinking rapidly. She hated the purple shadows around his eyes. He really wasn’t sleeping well.

“You’re sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure in my life.”

A pause.

“Huh.” His fingers twisted in the dark blue sheet puddled around their waists, and then he automatically tucked it more closely around her. Always looking after her, even when she’d shown no sign of being cold at all. “You want in?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I. . .”

Lost for words for a moment, though not because he’d trusted her so instantly. He always trusted that she knew her own mind, and she appreciated that more than she could say. If he’d thought she was wavering, he’d never go ahead with it, but he knew that she knew what she wanted this time.

Clarice sure hadn’t expected this question, though.

“. . . why not,” she said eventually. Marcos was a decent guy, even if he was stupid sometimes. And attractive as hell.

John leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, and she tucked her hand behind his neck where it seemed to belong. They lost themselves in each other for a little while before the first crisis of the day hit.

* * *  
**John**

First matter, of course, was seeing if Marcos even wanted to.

Marcos and Lorna’d had a standing arrangement. They made love sometimes. If either one needed to be _dealt_ with, then the other one could just go ahead and start something. It was more complicated with John and Marcos, and especially now, especially when they hadn’t for so long.

Especially when Marcos had lost his partner and his kid in one blow.

John didn’t need three copies of a five page consent form, notarised and initialled in all the right places. But he sure did need to know that Marcos actually wanted it.

He jerked his head at his friend during dinner, and accordingly Marcos followed him around a corner into the room that John mostly used as his office. He leaned a hip against a corner of the dusty desk.

“What’s up? I promise I’ll be more caref-“

Marcos’ lips were rough under his, rough and malleable, and John found himself groaning. He cradled Marcos’ head, deepening the kiss.

He came up for air eventually.

“Bzuh?”

John laughed. “Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and assume that was a ‘what the hell’. The hell is that I think you could use an evening of, uh, distraction. Being fucked out of your head, or doing the fucking, or both. But it’s optional, like always.”

“I. . . I guess I could. Clarice okay with this?”

“Yup.”

John could see the coherence returning slowly to Marcos as he shook his head, palming his forehead. “What am I saying. Of course she is. You’d never do something like that if it’d upset her - I know you.”

One of the things John loved about this man with too much strain on his face was that he was always so goddamn conscientious about people’s feelings.

“It was her idea. She wants to join in.”

A deep breath, and Marcos’ eyebrows went up off his forehead and wandered somewhere around the ceiling. “Whoa.” After a moment, he added, “Awesome.”

* * *

**Marcos**

“There are rules,” Clarice said, and he could see the banked embers of definite _interest_ in her eyes. Damn, she was pretty. Those distinctive eyes, those cheekbones. The way her hair framed her face.

He nodded. “Wouldn’t expect anything else. What do you guys need from me?”

She barked a laugh, but then softened into a genuine smile. John’s hands were on his shoulders from behind. Marcos let his eyes close for a moment, then he felt a gentle hand cupping his cheek from in front.

“ _I_ need you to calm the hell down for a while. John needs you to…”

There was a pause. Maybe there were eyes meeting over his shoulder. He didn’t bother opening his own; they could have their private moment.

“John needs you to be extra close with him for a night. We both get that you’re upset, and anyone would be in your place -”

Marcos opened his eyes, ready to apologise for the times he’d been an idiot, ready to protest for the times he’d responded perfectly logically because come ON, this was Lorna and their KID, but there was a slim finger laid across his lips.

“- and that’s not what we’re going to argue today, Marcos. Today is just about you being good.”

She put some emphasis on the last word that made him shiver deliciously. He trusted her well enough, even though they’d never done this before. He trusted the hell out of John. He hadn’t always subbed to John. It was more often the other way around, or just a few hours of making love with none of that, the two or three or four of them just moving in synergy.

But he knew enough to know that this could be incredible, if he let it happen. He’d be able to speak up if something wasn’t okay. Not like they’d tie him up in a dungeon and bleed him, anyways; they’d never done anything extreme.

The finger was removed.

“I can be good,” he said lightly, smiling at her. “Traffic light system work for you both?”

Green for go, amber for re-evaluate, red for stop right the hell now. No questions asked.

His answers were a low rumble of assent/pleasure in his ear, and Clarice’s lips against his.

* * *

“Harder.”

John’s voice left no room for argument. Clarice responded by smacking his ass even more strongly. Marcos’ squawk of complaint dissolved very quickly into a moan as she rubbed the spot, fingertips trailing between his cheeks.

John grinned at him, keeping a grip on the rope wound around his wrists, and sank to his knees. John’s mouth closed around his cock a moment later and Marcos' coherence went up in smoke.

* * *

Marcos mouthed at Clarice’s nipple. She gasped in response, and John’s hand found Marcos’ wrist. He pulled Marcos’ fingers down to Clarice’s centre, where John was buried inside her, and showed Marcos how she best liked to be touched.

He responded with careful enthusiasm, enjoying learning her. After a minute or two, her head jerked back, and she shuddered for the second time that night.

* * *

The third time she came, she was astride him, his tongue loving her taste. John was fucking him again, through the stickiness of the first time that was now drying disgustingly and arousingly on Marcos’ inner thighs.

Clarice had his wrists held on the mattress. He bucked a little, now and then, just to feel her strength overcoming his.

* * *

They didn’t –

Didn’t let him come –

Until both of them had gotten off multiple times. He was tiring very rapidly of the strong fingers around the base of his cock.

John’s lips were sweet against his, and the bedsprings made a soft protest as John shifted his weight back so he could look in Marcos’ eyes properly. His lips curved in one of those true smiles that reached not only his eyes, but his entire face, entire body. Marcos loved seeing those smiles on John’s face.

It was reassuring, even though he could feel tears of frustration starting to slip out of his own eyes.

“It’s okay,” Clarice murmured in his ear. She began to jerk him off again.

“You’re doing good.”

Such simple praise from John, but it made Marcos bury his face in John’s shoulder.

At last, they let him go, and he fell apart completely. White lights exploded behind his eyes, and everything went bright and hard and tense. He didn’t start breathing again for what seemed like an eternity, and when he was finally aware of his surroundings again he was wrapped up in both of them.

* * *

 _This bed is not big enough,_ Marcos thought dazedly, as he curled around John’s back. John’s hand was warm and possessive on his thigh. Clarice’s head was on John’s shoulder, and she reached across John to caress Marcos’ upper arm. They only barely fit.

Which meant more touching.

It wasn’t big enough, but it was just right.


End file.
